The Opportunity

The role.

This is a player-coach seat: a senior, hands-on designer who owns DataCore's brand and its future, not a creative director who directs from a distance. You're on the keyboard daily, current on the latest design tools and trends, and you lead a small team, one in-house designer today, plus freelance support, and eventually creative agencies, without stepping back from the work yourself. This is a Senior Manager-level role in scope and compensation: we're looking for someone with the taste and craft of a creative director who is still building toward that title, not someone who already has it and won't be hands-on anymore.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the DataCore brand and its evolution: lead the refresh of the brand book and the digital design system from the ground up in the first 90 days, and keep both current as the single source of truth.
• Design and ideate creative for demand generation and awareness campaigns, ads, and landing pages, hands-on rather than directing from a brief.
• Own the digital design point of view: lead or play a key role in the ongoing evolution of a flagship web presence like DataCore.com, bringing current web design practice to every digital touchpoint.
• Own physical and event-facing creative: event collateral, swag, and the in-person expression of the brand.
• Design PowerPoint templates and sales enablement materials that hold the same quality bar as any customer-facing asset.
• Partner with the GTM engineering team to build AI-driven design workflows that automate and scale production, so the work outpaces the size of the team.
• Partner with product marketing, revenue marketing, and social on creative that serves their programs, not just brand for its own sake.
• Bring real social media design experience to the team's output, not just campaign and web work.
• Lead and coach the in-house designer on this team, and manage freelance support today, with an eye toward managing creative agency relationships as the team scales.
• Stay current, and keep the team current, on the latest design trends and tools rather than defaulting to what's always worked.

Ideal Candidate Profile

We're looking for a mid-career designer who has the craft and instincts of a creative director, someone who might already hold that title at an agency, or is the next call away from it, but who wants to keep making the work personally rather than only directing it. This is a senior craft-and-leadership role, not a step down from a Director title, and not a step up to one either.

Required Qualifications

• A working, hands-on designer first: you're still on the keyboard every day, not someone who has moved fully into direction and review.
• Deep, current fluency in Figma and the modern design toolkit, alongside Adobe, not the Adobe stack alone.
• Real, hands-on experience with AI creative tools (Midjourney, Nano Banana, and similar) as part of your actual production process, not just familiarity with them.
• A portfolio that shows brand systems thinking: you've built or substantially evolved a brand identity and design system, not just executed within one someone else built.
• Direct experience leading or playing a key role in the redesign of a flagship web presence (a company's primary .com), with current web design practice.
• Range across campaign creative (demand gen, ads, landing pages), physical and event collateral, and sales enablement materials like PowerPoint templates, not a single-channel specialist.
• Social media design experience.
• Experience managing a small design team and freelance resources; comfort managing external creative agencies is a plus.
• US-based.
• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent practical experience.

Differentiating Capabilities

Video creative experience, motion and editing, alongside the core static design toolkit. B2B technology background specifically, not just brand or creative generally. Comfortable operating to a PE or growth-equity standard for rapid, measurable scale.

What Success Looks Like

Immediate Mandate (First 90 Days)

• Ship the refreshed brand book and digital design system.
• Stand up the production model: the in-house designer, freelance bench, and the AI-driven workflows built with the GTM engineering team.

6-12 Months

• Brand identity and the design system are consistent and owned, not reinvented campaign to campaign.
• Campaign creative for demand generation and awareness, ads, and landing pages is hands-on, on-brand, and shipping at a pace the team couldn't buy.
• The web presence, event and physical collateral, and sales enablement materials all carry the same quality bar as flagship campaign work.
• AI-driven design workflows built with the GTM engineering team are producing real output, not sitting as a pilot.
• Your in-house designer and freelance support are producing consistent, on-brand work under clear direction, with agency relationships in place if and when the team scales.